shirley weir : our mission to empower women to navigate perimenopause to menopause and beyond, with confidence and ease.
sw : menopause is the 12-month anniversary of your final period. you have to go 12 consecutive months without a period before you reach menopause, and when you reach it, it’s like a milestone, rather than something you go through. i’ll be 53 next month. i reached menopause when i was 49 while the average age in north america is 51. perimenopause is the phase of life leading up to menopause, and if anyone is going to experience challenges, it will be then. post-menopause is every day after menopause for the remainder of your life
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sw : when i was 39, my breasts started to hurt. two years later, during a pap smear, i told my doctor i was struggling with sleep deprivation, brain fog, anxiety, and depression for the first time in my life. i told her i thought i might be experiencing the first signs of menopause. she looked at me and my chart and said, “you’re 41, you’re too young for menopause.” which is true. i was 10 years too young for menopause, but i wasn’t too young for perimenopause.
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h: how did you grow your group to more than 19,000 members ?
sw : i had a few events and my friends were supportive because they saw the gap in health information and in being their own health advocate. but i will not lie, there were a few friends who pushed back. one friend put her hand in my face and said, ‘shirley, i am not there yet. don’t post anything on my facebook page because i’m online dating and i don’t want anyone to know i have a friend in the menopause business.’
sw : there are a lot of stereotypes, one is that pain and suffering is just part of being a woman. you are not meant to suffer pain with your period. it’s supposed to be a natural cycle. we’re not meant to suffer. it’s been embedded in women’s psyche that their health comes last. for decades, women have been taking care of others: they’re looking after babies, teens, partners, and sometimes, aging parents. but when they get a tap on their shoulder from their body that says ‘you don’t normally wake up at 3 a.m.,’ women tend to put their own health on the back burner.
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the other myth is you will have hot flashes, they will be debilitating and they will disrupt your life. first of all, you may or may not experience anything. and secondly, if you do, you are not meant to suffer. there are viable solutions. that’s a sign that you are in a state of hormone imbalance and here’s a health professional that you can work with to not feel that way anymore and then just get on with enjoying the rest of your life.
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sw : in the japanese culture, there is no word for menopause. i think the other thing that happens in some of the eastern cultures is that they honour and revere their elders way more than we do here in north america. it’s a rite of passage to reach a certain age and acquire the wisdom and confidence that comes with being an older woman. i think that plays a huge role [in health] compared with what we experience here in canada, the u.s. the u.k., australia and new zealand.
sw : at the turn of the last century, women lived to be 50. so this conversation was irrelevant because women had babies when they were 16 to 22 and died at 50. now, we are the first generation to turn 50 and have 50 more years to plan for. so perimenopause and menopause is like an awakening where women have this opportunity to invest in the health they want for their later decades. it’s so important, because if you were to go to a seniors’ home, you would find so many women suffering with osteoporosis, dementia, and incontinence. and those are three things that can prevented if you invest early enough. kind of like an rrsp, we’re all taught to put money in for our later years, but we’re not taught to invest in our bones, our brains, and our vaginal health.
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sw : i think it’s hogwash. i’m not sure what they were trying to prove and disprove. they’re talking about women reaching their natural menopause at 52, so there’s nothing in the study that indicated anything that we’ve known from textbooks for years. some of the language in the study made my hair curl, the definition of sex was intercourse and they used a phrase, like ‘married partners.’ just because you’re married doesn’t mean anything. i think the headline is written by the patriarchy to get women in mid-life to feel guilty if they don’t feel like having sex. low sexual desire is something that’s reported quite often. it’s an important conversation. i’m just not sure that research was having the right conversation.
sw : i believe it’s my generation’s responsibility to crack open the conversation around menopause and bring to the forefront what’s not being said.